From the Thames to Eternity: If Stone Could Speak Event Programme
The If Stone Could Speak event programme celebrates the installation of the From the Thames to Eternity project outside St Paul’s Cathedral.
Experience hands-on techniques from experts and artists at the ‘If Stone Could Speak’: Day of Craft. Experiment with stone, actively explore paper sculpting and weaving, near historic granite stones repurposed as inclusive seating by St Paul’s Cathedral.
If you’ve joined any of the workshops, tours, or talks in the ‘If Stone Could Speak’ programme, then please share your feedback by completing the short form below.
‘If Stone Could Speak’ is a complementary programme of activities delivered by Cheapside Business Alliance and City of London Corporation to celebrate the cultural place making project: ‘From the Thames to Eternity’. The project reimagines historic granite stone from the 19th century River Thames at Victoria Embankment as new accessible public seating near St Paul’s Cathedral.
At a time when cities are rethinking how they build – and what they build with – this project offers a quietly radical proposition: that the most sustainable material is often the one already here. That reuse is not merely practical, but profound. And that in choosing to honour what came before, we build more thoughtfully for what comes next.
Produced by URBAN LEARNERS, ‘If Stone Could Speak’ is a cultural events programme about stone, craft, belonging and its story in the City of London. It explores the cultural and historical value of stone, and the role natural stone can play in creating a more sustainable built environment
Our City Stone Map trail explores the ever-changing City of London, tracing the City’s stone material history from its Roman foundations to contemporary buildings.
The Map will be available to collect at the event locations outlined above (St Paul’s Churchyard and Temple Bar), as well as at the City Information Centre, and is also available digitally here or download PDF version here.
About the Day of Craft
Artisan crafts, alongside stonemasonry, are also important in maintaining the heritage of cities and more sustainable environments.
This programme highlights crafts historically associated in and surrounding St Paul’s Cathedral, one of the most iconic and historic buildings in the UK, with a legacy of faith, architecture, and craftmanship stretching back over 345 years. The care and conservation, and therefore traditional heritage skills, are vital in maintaining the stonework, structure and finishes that have stood the test of time.
The Cathedral is committed to preserving traditional heritage skills (including stonemasonry) and passing them onto future generations. Heritage skills needed to conserve stone buildings are highlighted through activities including stone carving and sketching.
The trades and associated crafts that historically took place around the Cathedral included textiles, publishing and bookselling in Paternoster, as well as printing in nearby Fleet Street. The Day of Craft celebrates this heritage through activities including weaving bookmarks, and paper sculpting.
These outdoor activities will take place immediately above the Cathedral’s current workshop spaces and the future ‘The Wren International Centre of Excellence’, which will help increase their training offer and accessibility to it.
About Temple Bar
The story of Temple Bar is one of reuse, longevity and heritage, thereby complementing the From Thames to Eternity project and its central ethos’ of Sustainable Life Cycles and ‘Belonging’.
Temple Bar was once a gate way marking the boundary between the City of London and Westminster and named after the nearby Temple area. Today, this Sir Christopher Wren designed stone gateway marks the entrance to Paternoster Square from St Paul’s Churchyard and is home to the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects. It has been ‘saved’ or rebuilt twice, once in the late 1800s by the socialites Valerie and Henry Meux in their Hertfordshire estate, and then by the Temple Bar Trust formed in the 1970s to rescue it from ruin, and who secured a site for it in Paternoster Square where it was reconstructed in 2004.
The festival’s indoor activities take place at Temple Bar, including the historic Temple Bar Chamber with stunning views of St Paul’s Cathedral’s iconic dome.
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